


Playing to Win

by Azure_Lynx



Category: The Shadow Game - Amanda Foody
Genre: Epilogue, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Listen the romance is pretty minimal here but the ships are relevant to an extent, Post King of Fools, ambiguous ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24397804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azure_Lynx/pseuds/Azure_Lynx
Summary: “You weren’t all the way dead,” Harvey explained, which clarified nothing. “Just...mostly dead. There’s a little bit of time, like…” He spread his hands helplessly. “Like your coffee going from hot to cold.”Time enough to strike a deal with the Bargainer.
Relationships: Jac Mardlin/Sophia Torren, Levi Glaisyer/Enne Salta, Lola Sanguick/Tock (The Shadow Game)
Kudos: 4





	Playing to Win

It wasn’t the first time Harvey Gabbiano had held a dead body, but it was probably the most unpleasant. 

Two things were true about his life: One, he was hopelessly committed to Bryce Balfour, and two, he really had not wanted tonight to go like this. “The only thing that summons the Bargainer is chaos.” So the legend went. But sometimes, it was the Bargainer summoning the chaos.

This bit of chaos, though, had nothing to do with Bryce Balfour. Jac Mardlin was limp in Harvey’s arms, two blood stains blending together in the front of his shirt, his Creed dangling loosely. Last Harvey had seen the man, they’d both sheltered in a church after curfew, sharing an unlikely camaraderie. 

Last Harvey had seen the man, he’d asked, “Can you unlove someone?”

Legend said the Bargainer could take anything from you. The Bargainer had taken Harvey’s heart, not through any conscious attempt, and his past.

But the Bargainer can also give, though never for free. Jac’s body was still warm, and this meant Harvey had a chance. A chance to make things right.

Or as right as he could, anyway.

The Bargainer only approaches the desperate, they say, but everyone is desperate. Harvey knows this better than most, as a Chainer and as a desperate person himself. It was what led him to Bryce in the first place. Same as Rebecca, same as anyone else. 

No. What makes the difference is that the truly desperate approach the Bargainer. 

He’d been alive a long while, and he’d seen a lot of desperate faces, but in that moment, Enne wore the most desperate he’d ever seen. And everything about Levi, as long as Harvey had known him, screamed desperation. Jac himself held a different kind of desperation, but desperation nonetheless. 

All this to say that Harvey was sure someone would be willing to pay the price for what he was about to do. He would probably pay the price, too, but in terms of his soul, because he knew this wasn’t anywhere near okay by the Faith. 

But Harvey Gabbiano was a Sinner, and Harvey Gabbiano didn’t care. 

He didn’t want to think about the bodies he knew were on the floor at St. Morse. He didn’t want to think about Bryce’s bright eyes and maniacal laughter, spinning the roulette wheel and taking people out as he did. Harvey didn’t have to witness it to know what was happening; Bryce had been very detailed in his plans.

The problem with falling in love with the devil was that sometimes, he did devilish things.

So instead, Harvey focused on the body in his hands, focused on the warmth and keeping it there, focused on the bloodstains and the creed and the deathly pallor of Jac Mardlin. He’d always been grey, just barely this side of death, but now he was just barely on the other side.

He laid Jac on Bryce’s desk and laid a blanket over top of him, like a macabre present from a cat to its master. But then, what more was Harvey than Bryce’s housecat, anyhow? And so he sat in a chair to the side and waited. 

Rebecca was nowhere to be found, which was how Harvey preferred it. It was generous to call himself a housecat - Rebecca was the housecat, Harvey the stray who lived in the barn. Bryce liked to pit them against each other, but just because Harvey knew that didn’t mean it didn’t work. 

She’d given all her days to Bryce, just to have more of them and slow her impending death, and yet she never seemed happy to be alive. Harvey, on the other hand, had traded all the memories of his first go round for a second chance at life, and while Bryce assured him that none of those memories were worth keeping, anyway, Harvey was still determined to make the most of his chance, Sinner or not.

That was the thing about the Faith. It meant something different to everyone. 

Holy men liked to say the prayers of Sinners went unanswered, but Harvey figured that everyone in New Reynes was a Sinner so whoever answered prayers would get mighty bored if they didn’t. That said, he only prayed when he had something worth praying over, a prayer he thought they might like to answer. 

Right now, he was praying for Jac.

Bryce came in long after Harvey had started getting worried, hanging his hat on a rack by the door. 

“How did it go?” Harvey asked. 

“Perfectly,” Bryce replied. He turned to see the ashen corpse of Jac Mardlin on his desk and made only the tiniest face of displeasure. “What’s this?”

“A business deal,” Harvey replied, pouring as much persuasive charm into his words as he could, even knowing it would have no effect on Bryce. “A way to get Pup or Séance in your debt.”

Bryce raised his eyebrows. “I’m listening.”

His Chainer talent didn’t work backwards, but he still felt something of a debt to Jac for the night they shared, for the comfort of his company and his undeserved advice. Harvey needed this to work; the only wrong kind of Sinner was the Sinner with a guilty conscience.

So Harvey explained his plan, forcing his voice to stop shaking. He knew the words to say to get Bryce to agree, the words of debts and ownership, and most importantly, spurning Vianca after her death. After all, Harvey knew about the _omertas_. He knew that Enne wasn’t really responsible for her actions.

Bryce drummed his fingers against his desk, looking down to inspect the body. Still warm enough, though with pale lips and sunken cheeks. “I like it,” he said finally. “Except for one thing.”

Harvey swallowed thickly. “What’s that?”

Bryce grinned, his red eyes flashing. “I intend to collect from them all.” 

\---

In the end, the thing Bryce Balfour took from Jac was his name. 

He let Jac stay Jac - though wouldn’t it be funny, he’d mused, as Jac was just regaining consciousness, to make his name Todd Walsh? 

Jac did not think it would’ve been particularly funny. He kept Jac - he was Jac, but he had no family name. None on either side. 

He didn’t remember what they’d been. He didn’t remember either talent he’d had, blood or split. He knew there were talents, because he also now knew, by Bryce’s admission, that he was the only talent-less soul in the world.

He had two holes in his chest, still, that Bryce had neglected to heal, just patch, and he had a haze of memories that seemed like they belonged in the last twenty-four hours. Or one hundred twenty, since Harvey Gabbiano told him he’d slept for four days. 

It was the most they’d spoken since that night in the church. Jac wondered if Harvey remembered. 

“You’re lucky,” Bryce had said. “I was going to take your sobriety, make Lullabye and Rapture the only things that could keep you alive - but Harvey here convinced me that your names were more valuable.”

So Jac was Jac, and nothing more. A man with no talents, and no memory of ever having any. He wondered if Levi would want him back as second, in the state he was in, but decided that even if he didn’t, Jac still needed to see him.

Harvey told Jac that Enne killed him. He only remembered little things - the sound of a gunshot, then another; saying something witty to try and reassure whoever it was - but he remembered that he wasn’t angry. He knew why she did it, and he felt he ought to tell her that.

But more than anything else, he wanted to see Sophia again. They’d done it; they’d burned the Torren empire to the ground. Both his and her scores were settled.

Harvey walked him back to the museum. He promised Jac that Jac owed him nothing, that it was him settling a debt, but Jac wasn’t sure he believed Harvey. He wasn’t sure what Harvey owed him for.

The City of Sin was built on duplicity. Even with up front payment, a miraculous resurrection from the death - which Jac _still_ did not understand - could and probably would be a double cross.

“You weren’t all the way dead,” Harvey explained, which clarified nothing. “Just...mostly dead. There’s a little bit of time, like…” He spread his hands helplessly. “Like your coffee going from hot to cold.”

Jac had seen a lot of death, and had always had the impression that it was an instantaneous sort of thing, but here he was, living and breathing, no matter how damn cold he felt.

“Will it last?” he asked about the cold. 

Harvey shrugged. “Couldn’t say. I’ve never seen Bryce do this before, only knew he could.” He doffed his hat at Jac, leaving him at the door. “Give my regards to your Lords, hm? And tell them they both owe Bryce Balfour.”

“Wait.” Jack flexed his fingers. “I paid already. He took my name, my talents. Why do they need to pay?” He knew there’d be a double cross. And this was a pretty big one.

“Because he’s the Bargainer,” Harvey replied simply. “Bringing someone back to life is a rather expensive bargain.”

“They never agreed to-”

“But they would have, if they’d known they could.” At that, Harvey finished his turn and walked down the street, leaving Jac standing in the rain by himself at the front door of the Irons’ base.

\---

When Levi came down to pour himself a morning drink, he nearly turned on his heels and went straight back to bed. Standing in his doorway was Jac, very much alive despite Enne’s confession to his murder. 

Except. 

Except she wouldn’t lie about that. He hadn’t seen her since the execution, when she shot Jonas Maccabees between the eyes and ran. She wasn’t at the finishing school with the Spirits - Lola had been given the task of wrangling all the counters, with Grace and - Roy, Levi thought his name was, to help. Lola and the Spirits hadn’t seen her in an even longer time. 

Enne, like the namesake of her gang, had simply disappeared.

“Levi. Say something.” Jac’s voice was rusty, like something you might pull out of the river, but it was unmistakably his. Levi knew Skin-Stitchers were powerful, but he didn’t know one that powerful.

“How?” he finally managed, looking at his Second, still very much alive even in his pallor and with the two red stains blossoming on his shirt.

Jac didn’t smile, so neither did Levi. “Harvey struck a bargain.”

Levi shivered. “That’s impossible. And why-?”

But Jac was already shaking his head. “It’s not. I’m here. Ask Enne, she’ll tell you I was completely gone.” His mouth was grim. “As for why, well, Harvey volunteered you and Enne to pay the price.”

Levi swore. Of course he did. “That’s not how bargains work,” he protested, but he still moved closer, pressed his hands against Jac’s cheek, feeling how cold he was. “Muck, man, you still feel half-dead.”

“I always will,” Jac replied with more conviction than Levi thought the situation should have. “And apparently there’s some sort of loophole to bargaining with The Bargainer when it comes to something another person wants bad enough.”

He thought about the five miserable nights he’d lain awake after Jac’s death. If given the chance, Levi would’ve made the bargain himself, damn the consequences. But if Enne owed, too, that must mean she felt the same way.

The thought did not sit well with him.

“Okay,” he replied, knitting his fingers. “Okay. I’ll pay.”

“You don’t know the price,” Jac whispered hollowly. “Don’t promise that. You don’t know what he can take.” He said it with the awareness of someone who did.

Legend said the Bargainer could take anything from you. Levi remembered his recent realization about taking all the myths far more seriously, and he sighed. “Jac, what did he take from you?”

“My name.” Levi looked at him blankly, not understanding. “My family name.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re Jac Mardlin,” Levi scoffed. Taking names. 

Jac shook his head. “I don’t know what that means. I don’t have any talents. I’m just...Jac.”

Every other Iron was sleeping - calling it a ‘Morning Drink’ was perhaps a bit generous - but Tock pushed her way out of the room she’d claimed. “Muck, Levi, it’s early. Who are you talking to?” When she saw, her jaw dropped. “Jac?”

He waved. 

“Tock, come here,” Levi demanded, forming an idea. Jac thought his talents were gone, fine. Levi would just have to prove him wrong. “I want you to arm wrestle with Jac.”

She looked at him like he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had. But she rolled her eyes and put her elbow on the bar, and Jac joined her. 

Tock won. Easily, three times, before she got exasperated and demanded Jac _actually try_ instead of letting her win, but Levi knew Jac would never throw a game with no stakes. His pride wouldn’t allow it. 

Jac’s talents really were gone.

“Sophia did it once,” Jac said. “She gave her split talent to a Bargainer. Is there more than one? Anyway, I guess my life is just...twice that.” He shrugged, like it was no big deal. “I understand if you don’t want me as your second anymore.”

“Of course I do,” Levi protested. “Thickhead! I would never get rid of you.”

Tock snapped. “Hello, fellas? Anyone want to explain to me how Jac is here, living, and not dead like Enne said he was?”

Jac toyed with his Creed, which still hung around his neck. It was comforting to Levi. “Someone made a deal with the Bargainer for my life.”

Tock wheeled on Levi. “You _thickhead!_ ”

“It wasn’t me!” He held up his hands defensively, grateful that this was a true statement. “Harvey Gabbiano set the bargain, but we’re still stuck paying the price.”

“We?” she demanded. 

Levi inclined his head towards Jac. “He’s been collected on. Enne and I still owe Bryce.”

Tock grimaced. “This is not going to be good. But I’m going to call Lola, she’ll be relieved to hear you’re alright.” She squinted at him, giving him a thorough once-over. “Are you alright?”

Jac gave a less-than-convincing smile and a thumbs up, and Tock left them.

“Alright,” Jack said, heaving a weary sigh. “Pour me a drink and tell me what I’ve missed.”

\---

Sophia Torren was the first person in recorded history to enter an _omerta_ willingly. She considered this with something between amusement and pride as she left St. Morse on her way to the Irons hideout. 

Being Jac Mardlin’s girlfriend had granted her immediate access and trust. Or if not trust, it made her invisible enough to stand off to the side and observe. Learn. 

She’d drink with the lower ones, and occasionally Tock. The girl had been very sympathetic about Jac’s death.

Sophia had never been one for sympathy, though. She preferred revenge. 

Revenge, specifically, against the Lords who were responsible for the death of the _one good thing_ she’d managed to find in this town. And one Lord was a Mizer, to top it off. 

She’d burned Luckluster, and now she was going to burn them, too. 

“Now where are you going in such a hurry?” A man who she recognized as Bryce Balfour, leader of the Orphan Guild, stepped out into her path. 

She stepped to the left, but he stepped with her. “None of your concern,” she answered brusquely.

“Why don’t you flip that little coin of yours?” he suggested. “Might help you out.”

She bristled. Sophia Torren did not appreciate being patronized. “Did you want something?” she snapped. 

“Just to warn you,” was his reply. “You owe me a debt. I intend to collect.”

She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t make a deal.”

“That you know of.” His smile was crooked, a mockery of the real thing. “I’ll see you soon, Ms. Torren.” 

She attempted to stomp his foot as she stepped around him, but he’d already melted back into the shadows.

He had to be messing with her. That was the only explanation. She’d seen everything that happened at St. Morse that night, the way he’d spun the roulette wheel and people had died. Just not the ones who should’ve. 

She remembered all the legends. She knew he craved chaos.

Still, there was a nagging feeling dogging her every step, and she kept reaching into her coat pocket, rubbing her thumb across her coin. He’d told her to flip it. On the one hand, she hated to play right into his hands, but on the other, she trusted the coin. She trusted the luck.

She flipped it as she walked in the front door of the Irons’ museum. 

Tails.

Oh, muck. 

“Sophia!” Jac, her Jac was on her in an instant, pulling her close. He was cold, but it didn’t matter, she melted into his arms anyway.

They’d said - Jac was supposed to be dead. That was the whole reason she was still here, under _omerta_ , fighting the Mizer instead of in some far off place relaxing with him and forgetting all of this.

For the first time since she did it, she began to regret her _omerta_ to Harrison Augustine. And, she realized with a chill, she’d been so preoccupied with vengeance that she hadn’t checked the coin before she walked into Harrison’s office. 

Oh, _muck._

\---

Enne had spent every hour since Jonas’ execution on the South Side, holed up in the financial district. It was, without argument, the least safe place for her to be. It was also the least likely place they’d look, at least to start, and it was as far from her girls as she could get without leaving New Reynes.

And she was absolutely not leaving. If there had ever been any doubt about that before, there was none now. She had new goals, new ambitions, and new enemies. She would not back down.

She’d gone as long as she could without food and now, under the cover of night, she intended to go find some. The nice thing about the “respectable” part of the city was that, unlike the North, the South Side had a bedtime. 

The less nice thing was the fact that other North Siders tried to take advantage of it, too.

She ran into a little girl, couldn’t be more than fourteen years old, with bandages over her arms. The girl looked familiar, and Enne didn’t have her contacts in, so they recognized each other at the same time. 

“Mansi?” she whispered.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t scream.” The girl crossed her arms.

Enne considered. “Do you care about politics?”

Mansi scoffed. “Of course not. I care about eating.” She was looking a little hollow, the same way Enne was.

“Well, then, you want the reward for me, right?” Enne reasoned. “To feed yourself and the Scarhands, especially after Jonas-”

“Shut up!” Mansi hissed. “Don’t. We both know it was your bullet. And if you’d caught him before, he told me anyway, so your secret would still be out.” She hugged her arms tight around herself. “It’s your fault we’re in this mess.”

“The Scarhands?”

“The North Side.” She tightened her grip, and with a child’s grasp of politics and an adult’s tone of knowing despair, she said, “Maybe if I turn you in, they’ll leave us alone.”

“If it’s volts you need, I can make them,” Enne replied. The time for being careful was over. “As many as you want, more than the price on my head.”

“Fine.” Mansi pulled her gun out of her waistband. It seemed wildly out of place in her hands. “But I know how it works, so we’re going to see Levi, because you need a Glaisyer. And if he doesn’t agree, then I’m throwing you to the Whiteboots.”

Enne could take out her own gun and kill Mansi, probably, but she really didn’t want to. The thought of taking the life of another - well, friend was too strong a word, but someone she had positive feelings towards - made her sick. 

Even after Jac. Especially after Jac.

They made the long walk back to the North Side in silence, crossing over Revolution bridge and continuing along the road, creeping. The curfew was still in effect, but Mansi seemed to know the timing of the patrols and all the best hiding spots.

Mansi rapped on the door to the museum with her gun on the small of Enne’s back. Tock opened the door, looking at Enne and then Mansi.

“Come in,” she invited, stepping aside. “I’ll fetch the others.”

“The others,” as it turned out, were Levi, Sophia, and Lola, but unexpectedly, inexplicably also Jac.

Enne let out a sob. Mansi, on the other hand, blanched, pulling her gun from Enne’s back to point it at Jac. “You were dead,” she insisted. “Jonas said. He said he saw your body.”

“Didn’t stick,” Jac replied.

But Mansi was right. Enne knew the moment he died because it was the moment her _omerta_ stopped driving her forward. “I’ve overcome worse” was nothing but a kind reassurance to her in his final moments. 

The only way he could be standing here was through a miracle, but Enne knew there were no miracles in New Reynes. Only wagers and bargains. 

Her stomach sank. “Who’s paying?” she asked softly. Jac and Levi grimaced, and Jac inclined his chin in her direction.

Hm. So she really was in the losing position. 

Mansi had not stopped shaking, but she hadn't stopped glaring at Levi, either, with the hatred of a thousand suns.

Lola, with her bright red hair and her typical attitude, had finally had enough of waiting, and she launched herself at Enne. “I was so _worried_ about you.”

“No need,” Enne replied smoothly. “So let’s take stock, shall we? The Irons are down several members, the Spirits are wounded, the Scarhands are leaderless and in disarray-”

“Hey!” Mansi protested.

Enne raised an eyebrow. “Am I wrong?” Mansi had no rebuttal. “Good. Jonas betrayed us, Ivory betrayed us, Bryce betrayed us. Jonas is dead, so we could still ally with the Scarhands, perhaps, but the Doves are definitely not on our side.”

“What will it take to get the Scarhands?” Levi asked, but he was looking at Mansi. Looking at a child like she was a leader. Well, maybe she was; Enne had no idea if Jonas had ever picked a Second in his short reign. 

“Volts,” Mansi replied. “Supplies. A plan to win this mucking war.” She scowled. “We want to take back the North Side.”

Enne nodded crisply. “I can do that.” ‘I,’ she said, not ‘we’ or anything else. If you wanted something done in this city, you had to do it yourself.

“The two of us still owe Bryce,” Levi pointed out. “And I don’t think he’s interested in volts.”

“Three,” Sophia whispered. 

They turned to look at her. “What?”

“Bryce said I owed him for something. He stopped me on the way here.” She looked tired, more than anything else, leaning heavily into Jac’s side. “Jac’s here, and that has to be what he was talking about.”

“Hold on,” Enne protested. “Who made the bargain?”

“Harvey Gabbiano brokered it,” Jac explained. She got the feeling it was not the first time. “There’s something about the power to act in the stead of another, and Harvey acted in all of your steads.” 

Enne snorted. “Of course. So the three of us each owe something to Bryce. I take it you already paid?” She nodded at Jac and he nodded back.

Levi startled. “How did you know?”

“Because the Bargainer takes and takes until there’s nothing left to give,” she answered, not letting her weariness through. “Grace taught me all the legends, and she was fascinated by him.”

Sophia nodded. “There’s an old saying, everyone’s aunt’s proverb,” she offered. “‘Evil isn’t random - that’s what makes it the opposite of goodness. Evil is designed.’”

“We know for a fact Bryce has this new shadow game all meticulously planned out, but we don’t know _what_ his plan is.” Enne startled, suddenly remembering her last conversation with Harvey. “Jac, check your jacket pocket.”

He patted himself down, coming up with nothing. “Why?”

“Harvey slipped a card in there before taking you away.” She shook her head. “We’ve all got them.” She pulled out her Empress card. “I think bringing you back may have changed the game.”

“There are at least three sides at play here,” Tock pointed out. “One, there’s us. Two, Bryce. Three, the South Side. But I don’t think we can just blindly assume Harrison Augustine’s intentions are the same as the South Side’s, and we still don’t know where the Doves are going to fall. So it could be five.”

“Well, we can’t do anything if we’re poor.” Enne clapped her hands. “If evil can be designed, then so can luck.” She looked Levi dead in the eye, daring. “Let’s make some volts.”

**Author's Note:**

> I finished King of Fools and I was like "NO!" so I wrote this in 24 hours because Jac can't be dead, and I can't wait until September to hear what happens next. I know the fandom for this is so small it's practically non-existent, but to any of you who read this, thank you and I hope it helps with the post-KoF pain.


End file.
